Sid Waterman, 69, a businessman in Gualala, Calif., demonstrates with his fellow townsfolk outside the California Coastal Commission office in San Francisco on June 18, 2008.Photo by Peter Fimrite / The Chronicle

Independence Day is a big thing in a small town, especially one like picturesque little Gualala, on the Mendocino County coast, which is celebrating 150 years of existence this year.

Take the fireworks away from the townsfolk and you're likely to provoke, well, fireworks.

Outraged Gualala citizens filed a lawsuit and marched with placards denigrating the California Coastal Commission in front of its San Francisco office this week after the agency halted the town's planned fireworks display on the Fourth of July.

"Why are we being singled out?" asked Sid Waterman, 69, a Gualala businessman who drove 2 1/2 hours Wednesday to demonstrate with other Gualala residents. "There are fireworks all up and down the coast, and they decide to pick on us on our 150-year anniversary. It's the worst possible time."

Peter Douglas, executive director of the Coastal Commission, said the cease-and-desist order was issued June 11 after studies of last year's fireworks showed seabirds on offshore rocks abandoned their nests after the show. The Gualala Festivals Committee, the fireworks organizer, was warned about the environmental concerns and the permit last year, he said, but simply refused to work with the commission.

"Our job under the coastal act is to protect marine resources, and that's what is affected here," said Douglas, who claims the commission has often brokered agreements on where towns can hold fireworks displays without upsetting wildlife. "We don't get involved in 95 percent of the fireworks displays along the coast because most of them don't have these impacts."

On Wednesday, a judge in Ukiah rejected a request to delay the commission's ruling, forcing the Gualala Festivals Committee to formally cancel this year's fireworks display.

But local business owners said they are not about to give up the fight.

"We've lost one part of the battle, but this is going to Superior Court and, if necessary, appellate court," said Marshall Sayegh, the festival's committee spokesman.

Battle for a bash

It is a David-versus-Goliath battle between a small, unincorporated, fiercely independent town and a statewide public agency. It is extremely emotional because it involves a display of patriotism up against the environment, an American tradition up against the law.

Gualala, founded in 1858, is a seaside village on the southernmost edge of Mendocino County, right next to the wealthy resort community of Sea Ranch. It is a stunning location on the rugged north coast. The Gualala River runs through town into the ocean, which accounts for it's name, a Pomo Indian phrase for "where the waters meet."

River otter, osprey, egret and heron are often seen, and whales make regular visits off the coast. It is one of the few places along the Sonoma and Mendocino county coasts where sunshine regularly breaks through the fog.

Gualala was, for many years, a logging town. When the last mill closed in 1970, the town turned to tourism for its bread and butter. It has a population of about 2,000, is more Carmel than backwoods, but it still emanates tough self-sufficiency. Celebrities may own summer homes nearby, but marijuana is a money crop in the hills and trade in the pungent weed is brisk.

The Gualala Festivals Committee has shot off fireworks over the mouth of the Gualala River for the past two years, drawing about 3,000 people - many banging drums and wearing patriotic hats and outfits.

The influx of people has been a boon to the economy and a source of pride for the community. The plan this year was to hold a 15-minute display from a bluff on private property overlooking the water. The organizers said they obtained all the necessary local permits, including permission from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The organizers were nevertheless warned last year that they also needed a permit from the Coastal Commission, Douglas said. That requirement is based on the contention that the fireworks setup, however temporary, amounts to a development.

"Saying a 15-minute display is development and they need a permit is absurd," said Paul Beard, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed the lawsuit in Mendocino County Superior Court on behalf of the Gualala Festivals Committee. "Taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean almost any activity within the coastal zone would require a permit, including driving a car. That, I think, is an abuse of discretion."

Many locals think the reasoning behind the decision to ban their 150-year anniversary fireworks celebration is flimsy.

'Scaring a common bird'

"We're basically being accused of scaring a common bird," scoffed Wayne Harris, a kayak rental business owner in Gualala. "That species, the Brandt's cormorant, is listed as an overpopulated species."

Such arguments, Douglas said, are cynically self-serving and wrong. First, he said, there are many different seabird species that were negatively affected, including pelagic cormorants, pigeon guillemots, Western gulls and black oyster catchers. Brandt's cormorants, a common bird in California, were pointed out as a species of particular concern during Coastal Commission hearings.

The order blocking the fireworks came after biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and naturalists from the Bureau of Land Management and other organizations monitored the bird nests on the coastal rocks after the fireworks last year and found an inordinate number of nests were abandoned, leaving eggs vulnerable to predators.

The crux of the issue, though, was the decision by town leaders to ignore the commission and defiantly go their own way, Douglas said.

"If they moved it to a location where we didn't think there was a problem, we wouldn't even require a permit," he said. "They chose instead to make a public spectacle out of this. They are more interested in a fight than a solution, which is, in my view, irresponsible."

Sayegh said he will apply for a permit whenever the Coastal Commission requires all the other fireworks displays along the coast to get a permit.

"They are claiming we are firing fireworks over a rookery," he said. "The reality is that this island is a mile and a half south of us. To tell us that, out of all of the fireworks displays in California, there are no others with nesting seabirds within that range, you've got to be kidding."

Beard, whose legal group espouses limited government, free enterprise and usually takes the side of property owners in legal disputes, said the Coastal Commission is going too far.